Kyle Mcmillan Email and Phone Number

I graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2019 with high distinction as a BS major in chemistry with a minor in mathematics. My research experience at UNL included a summer research project where I worked on synthesizing organic photo-redox catalysts for potential use in laboratory and industrial applications. Further, I worked on a year-long project in a computational chemistry lab during my senior year running molecular dynamics calculations to simulate isoprene's interaction with the atmospheric air-water interface. I am currently a third-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder, Department of Chemistry. My area of research is in atmospheric chemistry. Specifically, I'm looking at the role of contact nucleation in phase changes that occur within atmospheric aerosol. My research involves the use of a long working-distance optical trap that is designed to carry out contact nucleation experiments colliding optically levitated micro-droplets with sub-micron aerosol particles. I had the fortune of presenting the results of my work last summer at the Conference on a Molecular Level Understanding of Atmospheric Aerosol (MUOAA) during the summer of 2022.My current work involves imaging of levitated droplets in the far-field, near-field, and bright-field (microscopy) as well as single-particle Raman spectroscopy. Among other instrumentation that I have used to supplement my work on the optical levitator are a Raman microscope and a single-mobility particle sizer (SMPS).Alongside my graduate studies, I have worked as a teaching assistant for both General Chemistry recitation and lab as well as an environmental chemistry course last fall. At the end of the summer following my first year, I was awarded the General Chemistry Graduate Teaching Excellence Award for my resourceful instruction as a TA. The following spring, I was assigned the head TA position for General Chemistry II, where I was tasked with overseeing my fellow TAs in recitation and lab and recording dry lab videos for remote instruction. My invaluable contributions as head TA were acknowledged the summer after when I received the Gilman Award for Leadership and Excellence in Teaching. Furthermore, during the two previous summers, I engaged in collaboration with Dr. Ryan Davis’s group at Trinity University, having mentored a total of five of his undergraduate students on the use of the optical levitator and Raman microscope in my lab.